Hell is not frozen yet! (Diablo 3)

Installed.

I haven't followed the development of this game closely so I'm not entirely sure what to expect.

I have little doubt the actual gameplay will be excellent hack and slash goodness but I really hope Blizzard has kept the Disneyfication to a minimum.

Guess I'll find out later today.
 
Well, I guess I would be happy... if I was able to play the damn thing. 2 hours later and now they have capped the number of players in game. I mean, can't complain too much since it's free, but still
 
I came in on my second attempt and been playing for a couple of hours now. didn't really care much about Diablo 3 until I actually started playing. it's so much better than Diablo 2, and I got all nostalgic since it looks and feels so much more like the first game.

only thing I really didn't like so far is how little choice you have in how you build your character. seems like this opens up a bit more on higher levels, but you're still pretty restricted. on the other hands, you don't have to start all over to try another build - you can simply switch skills and runes when you feel like it.
 
I don't see that really as a problem though. I mean if we are honest, only a handful of the skills in the skill trees have been REALLY useful for the characters. Hence why you almost never saw any sorcer using electricity as main spell. It was either fire, ice or a combination (rare though). And that was similar for the other classes as well.
 
Crni Vuk said:
I don't see that really as a problem though. I mean if we are honest, only a handful of the skills in the skill trees have been REALLY useful for the characters. Hence why you almost never saw any sorcer using electricity as main spell. It was either fire, ice or a combination (rare though). And that was similar for the other classes as well.
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I don't see that as a problem with having too many choices though, I see that as a problem with imbalance.

but it's really too early to say. I tried a Demon Hunter and from what I can tell you aren't exactly stuck with one single play-style. you can still vary it a bit and decide on what skills best suit you. but I'm a sucker for distributing ability and skill points, and I miss doing so. once you get used to this stystem, however, I'm sure it will be good if not great.

with the crafting system it seems like you might have better control over your gear as well, which is a good thing. not a big fan of randomized equipment.
 
I also don't miss the skill trees much. Let's be honest, only a handful of skills per class were actually useful, and you had redundant, boring ones like the Barbarian's Masteries.

That said, I also find that the current system has its flaws. I don't like that skills are tied to a set. I play Witch-Doc, and I would like to use Poison Darts and Corpse Spiders at once, but I can't because they are both primary skills. Furthermore, they are forcibly assigned to their own button. Want your summon to be right-click? Nope, it's the ''1'' key, deal. A pool of skills from which you can mix and match would have worked better, I think. The levels also seem more linear, haven't done two playthroughs so I don't know if they are randomized.

But overall it's good old Diablo. So that's cause enough for celebration.
 
cyrni, actually lit was the preferred spec as of like 1.12+ when they introduced that weapon that reduced resists

forget the name of it

but after my bowazon my fav char was my lit sorc

used to do lots of D and B runs on her.
 
Crni Vuk said:
I don't see that really as a problem though. I mean if we are honest, only a handful of the skills in the skill trees have been REALLY useful for the characters. Hence why you almost never saw any sorcer using electricity as main spell. It was either fire, ice or a combination (rare though). And that was similar for the other classes as well.
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Are you being sarcastic now?
Crni you fucking cunt... Can never tell with you...
Lightning sorcs are the most popular. Believe me.
Take a quick glance at d2jsp.com and you'll find a lightning skiller is worth double of ice or fire.

TheWesDude said:
cyrni, actually lit was the preferred spec as of like 1.12+ when they introduced that weapon that reduced resists

forget the name of it

but after my bowazon my fav char was my lit sorc

used to do lots of D and B runs on her.
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Infinity.
Any sorc with orb+light rules MF'ing when you have a merc with inf


Yeah, I still play waaaaaaaaaay too much D2, what're you gonna do about it?
 
ah yeah, thats why I NEVER EVER saw sorces using only lighting skills. Because it was so useful. I tried it my self once. It was not really viable while ice and/or fire had a much better potential.

MF sorces are not fun for playing the game the usuall way. As soon you mention those I know you missunderstand me ...
 
Pure Lightning works, it's just really expensive. I was doing <30 second Chaos Sanctuary clears years ago with my pure Lightning Sorc long before Blizz/Fireball and Orb/CL became the standard area MF builds. I had my Infinity in a plain Scythe so I wouldn't have to deal with constantly reviving my merc due to Iron Maiden bullshit, and fucked shit up with my 11 frame Lightning spam.
 
Am i the only one that's not thrilled about this game?

Diablo has been one of my favorite franchises since the first game was released in 97. Although i've notices some fans playing the beta claiming it was lacking the typical diablo feeling, i had trust in Blizz. Now i'm not so sure. It feels more like sacred than Diablo, for me. the animations aren't that smooth, and the design pretty dull. I tried the demon hunter class, which just seemed pathetic once i got the rapid shot skill, which is pretty much the d2 strafe skill with some tweaks. It just looked awful when all the arrows had this red effects around em, very much like Cyclops laser beam, rather then a arrow spamming skill IMO. Maybe i'm just getting old and can't accept that they want to go in another directions, i hope not. But this game doesn't feel like Diablo at all. Torchlight however does, which confused me.
 
@Crni: Don't know when you last played the game but it's worth considering that the viability of certain builds changed considerably with different patch releases. The expansion of Runewords being a good example as to why this happened, along with specific changes to skills.

I'm tempted to get D3, however I've spent more time playing D2 than I have any other video game - by some distance. This has it's dangers.

Randomly, I started playing it again last summer, however I'd lost my LOD disc. Managed to get a necro to number 7 on the classic Europe ladder (all classes). Boom!
 
Ilosar said:
they are forcibly assigned to their own button. Want your summon to be right-click? Nope, it's the ''1'' key, deal.
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That can be changed in the options menu, check it.
 
lazlolazlo said:
But this game doesn't feel like Diablo at all. Torchlight however does, which confused me.
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Nothing really confusing about it. Diablo 3 is being developed by a team that consists pretty much entirely of people who had zilch to do with Diablo or Diablo 2. And it doesn't help that the team lead is kind of a douche who espouses such golden phrases as "concentrated coolness" as design tenants and whose past game credits aren't terribly impressive (IMO). Only really talented guy on the team is Leonard Boyarsky, and he's just there for lore development and world building. From what I've seen following the development, I think they're missing the mark quite a bit, in terms of what made Diablo and Diablo 2 great.

On the other hand, Torchlight is developed by a team consisting of a lot of the guys who left Blizzard North (which was the studio that developed Diablo 2 and, I think, Diablo as well).
 
I've just played the entire beta with a monk. Incredibly boring. And for some reason my monk was wielding weapons all the time, which disappeared whenever he did any attack.

Then I tried a demon hunter. Seems a lot more fun than the monk.

But all in all, I get no soul from this game. It feels like it was designed by committee. It's all so easy and forgiving. I died once and that was with the monk, while watching tv, and I wanted to see what happened anyway.

I expected more from a Diablo game. So far my experience has mainly been underwhelming and disappointing.
 
Ilosar said:
That said, I also find that the current system has its flaws. I don't like that skills are tied to a set. I play Witch-Doc, and I would like to use Poison Darts and Corpse Spiders at once, but I can't because they are both primary skills. Furthermore, they are forcibly assigned to their own button. Want your summon to be right-click? Nope, it's the ''1'' key, deal. A pool of skills from which you can mix and match would have worked better, I think.
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You have to enable "Elective mode" in the options so that you can assign any skill to any hotkey. The skill UI was changed from how it was originally into the current abomination and there have been complaints ever since it was done.

Ilosar said:
The levels also seem more linear, haven't done two playthroughs so I don't know if they are randomized.
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In the Beta portion of the game they appear to be. There are different sub areas that will open up but the area maps for the over world seem to be fairly static. The dungeon maps seem to be like in the old days though, there are a few preset layouts that it randomly chooses from but there also seem to be less layouts.

Edmond Dantès said:
It feels like it was designed by committee. It's all so easy and forgiving. I died once and that was with the monk, while watching tv, and I wanted to see what happened anyway.
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Unfortunately Normal mode is meant to be approachable for casual gamers which means that it will be too easy for gamers with any ARPG experience. That said, if you played the equivalent portion of Diablo 2 (about up to Blood Raven) it would be just as easy and boring.
 
Edmond Dantès said:
But all in all, I get no soul from this game. It feels like it was designed by committee. It's all so easy and forgiving. I died once and that was with the monk, while watching tv, and I wanted to see what happened anyway.

I expected more from a Diablo game. So far my experience has mainly been underwhelming and disappointing.
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Easy and forgiving? It's a small slice of Act 1 on Normal. It's not supposed to be hard, and it isn't exactly going to be ultra-action packed as far as your characters are concerned, since you hardly have any skills at that point. I don't know what you were expecting (Every skill/rune unlocked right off the bat and ultra-difficult monsters?), but the experience is entirely consistent with early Act 1 D2.


Here's a quote from the D3 CM replying to someone with a similar complaint to yours:

Bashiok said:
I think it's a symptom of the beta where you're in the part of the game where we're very deliberately guiding players by handing out a skill here, a rune there. It's really a crafted and linear experience to start (both in system introduction and environment) because the first couple hours are the most crucial to a successful and long term experience. We're not in the mindset to drop all of the game systems on you and say "Good luck, sucker!"

To some the approach we're taking is likely a turnoff because they want to feel like they're part of an elite group able to figure out complex and obtuse game systems, and be challenged the second the game begins. I think if they stick with it they'll find that there is a ton of depth and complexity to the game. We put the depth into the gameplay, skill, and decision making itself and not the requirement to overcome the UI or understand how the game even works.

If you're one of those players you're going to blaze through Normal, hit Nightmare, and things are going to start feeling really good for you. You just have to understand that not everyone is like you, and we're making the game so a wide range of people can enjoy it.
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http://us.battle.net/d3/en/forum/topic/4571558539?page=4#65
 
Kyuu said:
On the other hand, Torchlight is developed by a team consisting of a lot of the guys who left Blizzard North (which was the studio that developed Diablo 2 and, I think, Diablo as well).
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Yup, Matt Uelman did the music for Torchlight and is also doing the Torchlight 2 stuff which is why some of it sounds very Tristramy.

I find the lack of Paladin class disturbing... and the damn pointy armour designs, they really put me of D3. /petty.
 
Even on normal in Diablo 2 I used to at least have to be somewhat careful when fighting elites and/or bosses. True, the only real 'oh shit!' moments came on higher difficulty levels (and especially with those electricity elites) but so far D3 isn't just easy, it's like 3 difficulty levels below easy.

And I'm just not getting a feel for the skill system. Going with elective mode at least gives some freedom as to what skills I'm going with, but it still feels stupid and cumbersome. Also, there just isn't enough variety. By the time I was level 10 in Diablo 2, I had the choice of, for example with the necromancer, 9 skills, spread out over 3 distinctive trees. I could use whatever combination of those skills I wished, though effectiveness depended on a build that I had to chose and make myself.

In D3 my level 10 char has 7 skills. Of those skills, I can only actively use 4. I can pick a rune to augment those skills. Now I get that this is the 'new' way of choosing what 'build' you have, so they had to limit it somehow because otherwise everyone would be able to use every skill and you'd only be able to personalize through runes because they also threw out custom stat builds. But really, 4 skills? And it looks like it goes up to 6? So you end up with 6 cards from a deck, 'customised' with runes? Not my taste.

And I don't know why, but D3 doesn't give me a Diablo feeling. I'll give it another shot later tonight. The Demon Hunter feels a lot more fun than the Monk I played before. And now that I'm using the 'elective' setting at least I've got more freedom of choice. Still feels cumbersome as hell though.
 
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